This page contains additions, changes and fixes to InstaMAT products. It's a living document that will be continuously updated after each release.
InstaMat 2025 introduces a groundbreaking set of features that are transforming how artists create stunning 3D assets and environments. This first release out of early access packs an enormous amount of improvements including AAA-quality terrain generation and procedural asset placement, layer references and mask effects, curves nodes, and an enhancend viewport with raytracing effects!
Layer References
enable you to create powerful, procedural effects by accessing data from layers positioned below in the layer stack. Simply create a Reference
point on a lower layer. Then, use a Reference Generator
on a layer above to access the reference layer's texture or mask information.
To learn more about Layer References, open the InstaMAT Crate tutorial project from the New Project screen. The project contains a group of layers dedicated to Layer References.
Multi-Chanel Layers
can automatically populate their channels with information from references with a new input option in the Layer Channels panel. Select a Source Reference
, then choose the channel from the source to supply the data.
Masks can be referenced from layers below and manipulated to create complex effects such as damage build up or embossing.
Masks can now be manipulated with filters, unlocking powerful procedural workflows for texturing assets or creating procedural materials in layer-based projects.
For example, a painted mask can be blurred with
Mesh Blur
then warped with aSlope Blur
orSlope Warp
filter to create damage effects.
InstaMAT 2025 adds world-class procedural terrain generation to InstaMAT's massive library of nodes and tools.
With the
Terrain Erosion
node, artists can easily apply natural thermal and water-based erosion utilizing the power of their GPU.
Use a simple set of sliders to control the natural erosion process that would take place over thousands of years.
Simulate natural rivers and waterways with the
Terrain Water Simulation
node. This node computes both a flow and water accumulation map.
Simulate snow cover with the
Terrain Snow Simulation
node. Enter in the geographicial position of the terrain and day of the year for physically accurate results.
Apply textures and materials to terrain using height data to generate complete biomes. With InstaMAT's extensive material library, you can quickly create stunning vistas and landscapes.
Utilize the Element Graph’s ability to combine images, meshes, and point clouds into a single graph by scattering assets like trees, rocks, and grass across procedural terrain.
Use the Scene Procedural Placement
node to spawn meshes dynamically within a scene.
Use the
Procedural Placement Layer
node to scatter a layer of procedurally placed 3D assets on a height map. Create multiple placement layers to scatter a diverse set of objects in a scene.
Use the
Procedural Placement Collision
node to perform collision detection between two placement layers. This will prevent objects from spawning inside of one another.
Use the
Procedural Placement Density
node to generate a density map for the Procedural Placement Layer
node. Use attributes of a height map such as height and humidity to refine the density map.
InstaMAT includes a new suite of nodes for identifying naturally occurring phenomena—from hills and valleys to areas where sediment accumulates over time—making it easy to designate object placement.
The
Terrain Landform
node helps identify hills, valleys, and areas of natural sediment buildup for proper environment asset placement.
The
Terrain Residual Map
node makes it easy to determine different types of accumulation on natural terrain that can be used as a mask or density map when procedurally placing objects.
Use the
Terrain Curvature
node to quickly analyze a terrain's topology and identify the topology's peaks and valleys with various curvature types.
InstaMAT 2025 introduces a new suite of curves nodes making it easier than ever to create smooth and complex shapes using bezier curve paths (splines).
Use the
Curves Scatter
node to scatter images along a curve's path. The node's parameters let you control the number of scattered images, the curve range to scatter on, and the images' orientation—including aligning them with the curve's direction. And that's just the beginning!
The
Curves Sampler
node makes it possible to map data along the path of a curve. This makes it easy to define curve attributes at various points along a path such as color, height, and thickness. These attributes can then be used to adjust the visualization of the curve using nodes such as Curves Lines
and Curves Mapper
.
The
Curves Mapper
node applies an image along a curve's path, making it easy to create complex patterns and shapes like stitching. You can control the image mapping by adjusting the UV scale and offset. The node even allows cylindrical twisting of UVs around the curve to create sophisticated rope or threading patterns.
Use the
Curves Lines
node to draw lines from curves. Control the color and thickness of the lines using gradients or data from the Curves Sampler
node.
You can also generate Flood Fill data to easily identify and manipulate multiple lines with InstaMAT's extensive library of Flood Fill nodes.
Use the
Curves Fill
node to create closed shapes from a curve or set of curves. Control the softness of the filled shape. Add variance to the softness and the luminance of each enclosed shape.
The
Curves Append
node combines multiple curves into a single node. This allows you to use nodes like Curves Transform
to transform multiple curves simultaneously or create complex patterns using Curves Scatter
.
The
Curves Filter
node filters curves based on their index numbers, lengths, bounding boxes, and whether they form closed loops.
Use the
Curves Transform
node to translate, rotate, and scale multiple curves at a time.
Use the
Curves Flip
node to flip the direction of a curve or set of curves.
The
Curves Warp
node warps curves using either a grayscale intensity map or vector map. You can control both the strength and direction of the warping. The effect's influence on curves can be based on their position, spline distance, spline index, or data from a Curves Sampler
node.
Use the
Curves Weld Points
node to weld multiple points of a curve together based on a distance threshold.
Use the
Curves Circle
node to create a perfect circular curve or arc. Adjust the radius and curve range to form an arc, then modify its translation, rotation, and scale.
Use the
PointCloud Bezier Curve Generator
node to generate a set of points along the path of a curve. Set attributes such as Normal, Color, Size, and Height based on inputs created by the Curves Sampler
node. Use the Mesh Spawn On PointCloud
node to spawn meshes onto the generated points.
InstaMAT Studio's physically accurate 3D viewport gains a massive boost in visual quality with new features such as Raytraced Shadows, global illumination, reflections, improved bloom and translucency, and support for Sheen, Anisotropic and Clearcoat materials.
Realtime raytraced shadows add extra levels of dimension and definition to 3D assets and materials.
Global illumination elevates the photorealism of 3D renders by simulating natural light behavior.
Raytraced Reflections enhance the quality of the viewport experience by creating a more immersive and lifelike environment.
With added support for Sheen, Anisotropic, and Clearcoat materials, InstaMAT Studio's viewport becomes more capable than ever before to visualize high quality surfaces such as car paint, fabrics, and complex, anisotropic metals.
InstaMAT's realtime 3D viewport now supports custom environment maps. Simply drag and drop an HDRI onto the viewport to load the image as an environment image. This makes it possible to visualize 3D assets with accurate lighting that corresponds to their destination environment while texturing and painting.
InstaMAT's viewport improvements extend to the
Mesh Render
and Scene Render
nodes, including support for shadows, clearcoat, sheen, and anisotropic effects, enhancing both capability and render quality.
The new
Post-Processing Effects
node makes it easy to add cinematic effects to any image including renders generated using InstaMAT's Mesh Render
and Scene Render
nodes. These effects include Vignette, Bloom, Chromatic Aberation, and Lens Flare. You can also find these effects built into InstaMAT's Material Showcase
node to add a cinematic touch to your material renders.
Two new bakers have been added to InstaMAT: a new Disk Sampling Curvature baker, and a Bevel Normals baker.
The Disk Sampling
mode for the Curvature baker provides greatly improved results for a wide variety of use cases and texturing styles.
To access it, in the Mesh Baking panel, make sure Curvature
is enabled as an active baker. Unhide the Curvature Settings
in the Active Bakers
section, and under the Curvature Mode
dropdown select Disk Sampling
.
The Bevel Normals
baker generates a normal map with beveled edges along sharp angles. This helps add smooth, rounded edges to simplistic and low-poly meshes without the need to add additional subdivisions and polygons to the mesh's geometry.
To access it, in the Mesh Baking panel, enable Bevel Normals
in the Inactive Bakers
section.
A new collection of stylized materials has been added to InstaMAT's generative material library.
InstaMAT 2025 adds over 140 sci-fi decals to the built-in asset library. These fully customizable decals enable the creation of complex futuristic designs and materials. You can apply them as a brush or decal layer when texturing assets, or use them as patterns when developing sci-fi materials in the Element Graph.
InstaMAT 2025 introduces new grunges and patterns for texture and material creation.
A grunge with moisture spots and stains, ideal to add moisture-like details to a roughness map.
A grunge with a hand painted style, a great fit for stylized materials.
A grunge that represents a fully scratched and worn out surfaced with configurable number of scratches and scratch orientations.
A grunge with a lot of flecks and spots ideal for surfaces that need to be detailed with dried moisture or mold.
Creates a chaotic, irregular pattern with hard edges.
The new and improved
Mesh Blur
node can now blur across UV seams. Use it to create various photo-realistic and stylized effects when texturing 3D assets.
InstaMAT 2025 introduces new nodes for creating stylized materials and textures, featuring a new Stylized Filter
node along with a set of nodes for baking lighting and shadows.
Use the
Stylized Filter
node to create painterly effects with modes like Kuwahara and Nearest Neighbor. Use the new filter node to stylize color/grayscal images as well as normal maps.
The
Mesh Bake Light
node bakes lighting from up to three lights into a color map or generates a mask. Choose from area, point, or directional light types. Position, rotate, and scale lights using viewport gizmos.
The
Mesh Shadow Mask
node generates a mask from a 3D light source. You can choose from various light types, including area, point, and directional lights. Position the light precisely using viewport gizmos.
Drag an image from the Package Management panel directly onto an asset in the viewport to instantly create a decal layer. You can then precisely position, rotate, and scale the decal using viewport gizmos, or use the
Decal Picker
to place the decal on the mesh at your chosen location.
Dragging an image into the Layer Stack automatically creates a new layer with a UV projection mode.
The Paint Projector now has free rotation, scale, and translation controls adding more artistic control when painting stencils or even entire materials.
Compatible resources such as images, meshes, and point clouds can be added to the User Library by moving them into a new Assets subdirectory in the InstaMAT user data folder. Assets placed in the Assets directory can be used without needing to add them to an InstaMAT package first.
The InstaMAT user data folder is typically located in your user's Documents folder.
InstaMAT can now load string information directly from a file using the
String from Resource
node. This enables reading text files in various formats, including JSON data. In addition, InstaMAT now includes several nodes that can parse JSON data making it possible to control the execution of a graph from an external file.
InstaMAT Studio 2025 seamlessly integrates with Abstract Polyverse to make sharing and organizing materials, nodes, and projects simpler than ever.
To instantly upload projects to your public or private Polyverse asset libraries, simply click the Share to Polyverse
button in the Package Management panel. From there, you can choose to share your project as a 3D material or a cooked package.
Polyverse enables you to organize assets by category, description, and tags. Each asset tracks its version history, keeping everyone up to date and allowing users to revert to previous versions when needed. You can also view materials and 3D assets in the real world with one click using AR.
Share your creations publicly to receive likes and comments, or upload them to a private team library for efficient feedback and collaboration.
This release contains the following improvements and changes.
Layering/Asset Texturing
Library
Curves Weld Points
, Curves Filter
, Curves Warp
, Curves Transform
, Curves Append
and Curves Flip
Curves Merge
to merge multiple paths into oneCurves Circle
to create a circle or arc pathBezier Curve
now provides support for creating curve pathsBezier Curve
now supports editing multiple paths in the widgetBezier Curve
node has an optional flood fill outputCurves Fill
to draw curve paths as shapesCurves Lines
to draw curve paths as linesCurves Scatter
to scatter points along the curve pathsCurves Mapper
to map an image stretched along the curve pathsCurves Sampler
to sample an image and convert it to the curve formatTerrain Erosion
which performs hydraulic erosion on the heightmapTerrain Thermal Erosion
which performs thermal erosion on the heightmapTerrain Water Simulation
to perform a flow map and water accumulation simulationTerrain Water Simulation
to perform a flow map and water accumulation simulationTerrain Solar Radiation
computes the amount of sunlightTerrain Height to Normal
computes the normal based on the physical size of the terrainTerrain Splatmap
and Terrain Material Splatmap
for texturing heightmapsTerrain Slope Selector
and Terrain Elevation Selector
for creating maks from a heightmapTerrain Preview
for previewing a heightmap with a configurable PBR materialTerrain Landform
, Terrain Residual Map
and Terrain Curvature
Height Inflate
to inflate or delfate a heightmap based on the slopeHeight Collapse
to an inward or outward erosion based on the slopeHeight Stratification
to apply terracing filter on the heightmapHeight Contour Lines
to create contour lines from a heightmapHeight to Cone Step Map nPass
to compute a cone step mapNormal To Angle
to compute the slope and angle of a normal mapProcedural Placement Density
to generate a probability map based on the height or humidityProcedural Placement Layer
to create a procedural placement layer on a heightmapProcedural Placement Collision
to perform collision of multiple placement layersScene Procedural Placement
to spawn meshes dynamically within a sceneScene Compare
to compare two scenes similiar to Mesh Compare
Stylized Filter
to produce a stylized effect with various modes like KuwaharaMix Blend
added Oklab optionPostprocessing Effects
to add effects such as boom, lens flare and glare, chromatic aberration and vignetteMaterial Showcase
nodeMesh Polygon Mask
node supports per-axis scaling and rotation and multi-point selectionUV Shell Mask
supports more position input parametersMesh Blur
now has an option to blur across seamsMesh From Height
added new Adaptive option for reduced triangle countMesh Vertex Color Mask
to create a mask from vertex colorsMesh Light Mask
to bake in faux lightingMesh Shadows Mask
to bake in raytraced shadowsMesh Compute Packed BVH
to compute the BVH of a mesh in arraysMesh Image BVH
to compute the BVH of a mesh in texturesMesh Render
now supports raytraced shadows, area lights, sheen and anisotropic materialsMesh Random Transform Submesh
to apply a random transform to submeshesPointCloud from Volume
to create a Point Cloud from analytical shapesPointCloud Bezier Generator
to create a Point Cloud from a bezier curve compatible with the curves nodesPointCloud Position Generator
to create a Point Cloud using a poisson disk samplingPointCloud Circle Generator
to create a Point Cloud using a circle or spiralPointCloud Cull Normal
, PointCloud Cull Plane
, PointCloud Cull Mask
and PointCloud Cull Position
PointCloud Image Sampler
to sample Point Cloud attributes from an imageGet Image Bit Depth
to retrieve the bit depth and texture format of an imageRope Fibers
now provides a more realistic pattern for the threadsTile
alpha blending supportGaussian Noise
, Wavelet Noise
and Mesh Wavelet Noise
Weave Pattern Generator
now supports UV mappingRandom Scatter
added options for per-tile offsets and rotation advanceJSON Parse Float
, JSON Parse String
, JSON Parse Array
and otherString From Resource
to open a text file as stringString Array Append
, String Array Find
Compute Histogram
added options to compute the median and/or meanMaterial Multi Blend
for blending PBR materialsSummed Area Table
support for bordersHDRI Mesh Equirectangular
to render a mesh using an Equirectangular projectionTile
nodeCanvas
Viewport
Mesh Baking
Output Export
Inherited
outputs textures in the correct formatGeneral
ElementString
variables can be forced into one line with a new option in the Graph Variable EditorMaterialize Image
Preferences and shortcuts
Localization
Windows Installer
SDK and Pipeline
General
UI/UX
General
UI/UX
General
UI/UX
This release contains the following improvements and changes.
UX
FIXED: Cursor getting stuck when interacting with UIUI
FIXED: Search behavior when performing sequential searchesUI
FIXED: Global search hiding graph categories toolbar UIUI
IMPROVED: User Paths settings UI and custom packages handlingUI
ADDED: Option to export textures to a custom pathUI
ADDED: Maximum execution size settingUI
ADDED: Quality parameter when exporting textures to disk as JPGUI
ADDED: Support for graph Tags in Meta Data UIUI
ADDED: Deauthorization option through the Settings panelUI
FIXED: Several different input types errorsUI
FIXED: Translated strings typos and messagesUI
FIXED: Grayscale values not workingUI
FIXED: Color sliders from the color picker not workingUI
FIXED: Unsigned integers minimum range valuesUI
FIXED: Removed search persistency when saving blend fileUI
IMPROVED: Custom graphs category panelsUX
IMPROVED: Changed loading text to spinning iconUX
IMPROVED: Drawing gamma-corrected UI color picker to match visualized colors betterUX
IMPROVED: Disabled by default popup message when updating a graph instanceUX
IMPROVED: Immediately displaying instance settings when creating a new instanceUX
IMPROVED: Grayscale values as percentage slidersUX
IMPROVED: Automatically updating instance when update type is set to AutomaticUI
FIXED: UI jumps when modifying graph instanceUI
ADDED: Mesh preview for graph output nodesUI
IMPROVED: Search behavior with filters and local searchUI
IMPROVED: Name suggestions when creating graphs and instances to follow Unreal Engine styleUI
IMPROVED: Hiding texture settings if a graph does not output textureUI
FIXED: Invalid sliders values for some specific propertiesUI
FIXED: Incorrect minimum and maximum values for some specific propertiesUI
FIXED: Incorrect height of graph Tags UI elementUI
ADDED: Support for graph Tags in Meta Data UIUI
ADDED: Support for local searchUI
ADDED: Plugin iconUX
IMPROVED: Opening File Explorer/Finder when exporting textures to diskUX
IMPROVED: Using Content Browser when importing graphUX
IMPROVED: Using Content Browser when creating graph instanceUX
IMPROVED: User Path list modificationsUX
IMPROVED: Navigating Content Browser to InstaMAT Graph Instance object when creating new graph instanceThis release contains the following improvements and changes.
Layering
Mesh UV Shell Mask
and Mesh Polygon Mask
to create a mask based on a mesh UV shell and a mesh polygon selection. UV shells and polygons can be easily picked in the viewportMulti-Material (Unified)
modeMesh ID to Mask
Canvas and nodes
Symmetry Slice
to mirror an image over a planeTriangle Pattern
creates interesting irregular patterns of trianglesHex to Color
Blend
node by hiding advanced controlsMesh Set Normal
to assign vertex normals to a meshMesh Transfer Attribute
to transfer vertex attributes from one mesh to another by ray-casting or searchMesh Tile
for propreties such as normals, vertex colors and texture coordinatesMesh Target Scale
to automatically adjust the size of one mesh based on a target meshAuto Crop
for elongated shapesLevels
and Curves
have a new parameter to control the blend opacityMesh Subdivision
HDRI Compose
to compose two high-dynamic range imagesHDRI Convolute
to precompute HDRI convolutionsMesh Closest Point
to find the closest point to a mesh within a specified radiusArray of UInt32
Mesh Select Polygons By Volume
to select an array of polygons based on a 3D volumeMesh Select Polygons By Direction
to select an array of polygons based on a 3D directionMesh Extract By UV Shell
to extract a submesh based on the UV shellMesh Extract By Polygons
to extract a submesh based on an array of polygonsMesh Delete By Polygon
to delete an array of polygons from the meshMesh Polygon To Vertex Selection
to convert a polygon selection to a vertex selectionPointCloud from Mesh
to create a point cloud based on an array selectionMesh Calculate Normals
if the mesh contains a large number of degeneratesMesh Delete Degenerate Polygons
to remove degenerate polygons from the meshMesh Painting
in the canvasGeneral
Tutorials
Scatter Bake
, learn how to dynamically scatter meshes over a plane and use them for material designOld Grassy Pavement
, learn the basic workflows of Material Layering in this starter projectIntegrations and Plugins
InstaMAT for Blender
InstaMAT for Autodesk Maya
InstaMAT for Unity
InstaMAT for Unreal Engine
Localization
This release contains the following improvements and changes.
Localization — InstaMAT's user-interface is now localized with the help of AI translation.
Layering
Projection Mode
is now Tri Planar
.Canvas and nodes
Smooth
and Segment Count
parametersX
Mesh Baking:
Materialize Image
General
New tutorials